Captions by Hugo Snell. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2014 INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC CONTINUES 1 Hi, I'm Nathan. Hi, I'm Gabe. (IMITATES 'SMOKE ON THE WATER') I play the drums. (IMITATES GUITAR SOLO) I'm a guitar player. KETTLE WHISTLES Time to hit the road, Nathan. Time to hit the road, Nathan. Yeah! Welcome to West Auckland Engine Reconditioners. Basically, I help out in any way I can. This job is... Oh, it's totally a paradise. There's just something about cars which I'm just totally, um, crazy about. I don't have my licence yet, but I really want to drive. I'm going to write a love song, and when I get my car, sing my love song to my car. I reckon music and cars definitely go together. Welcome to Lincoln Rd McDonalds. My job is to clean tables and wipe them down. I take other people's rubbish. I'm, like, the head cleaner of McDonalds. Well, I've got one of their manager's black badges. I just love this place. I call it heaven. All I do is clean and clean and clean. I just love cleaning here, mate. I'm just blessed. I don't think I'm up to the level of people that cooks the burgers. I've done it once, but I didn't cook the burgers; I just cooked my fingers. (PLAYS RIFF) But in real life,... (PLAYS RIFF) we're rock stars! (PLAYS RHYTHM) You may have heard of us. We are The Mutes From Mars We've already released one album, and now we're working on our second album. We're, like, living the dream. It's like we are in a dream. We've just done so much. And now we're going to go to Whangamata, the Beach Hop, or should I say hot rod heaven. They're going to have 70,000 people there. And even better ` a thousand-plus more hot rods. Rock and roll, dudes! Yeah! You play for the crowd. I'll play for those hot beautiful cars. We really need to start practising before we rock hard. UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC PLAYS I absolutely love being a guitar player, and I've only been playing for five or six years, but it's going super good. (PLAYS SOARING GUITAR SOLO) Gabe is our demon on the drums. He drums like there's no tomorrow. I've got drumming blood in me. I always wanted to be a drummer. Well, I can't call myself the drumming king. Yeah, I love bashing things, hitting things, making the cymbals nice and loud. The band is like my dream. I'm living my dream for the max. ROCK MUSIC PLAYS I'm also engaged to the most beautiful girl in the world. It's like I'm in heaven and I'm in love. And apparently I am engaged to her. This is the ring from her dad when he was around. And sadly he passed away, so I won't talk about that. And this was his ring, and now I've got it. He's pretty cute and sexy, and I love him so much. We're engaged to be married. And I can't wait to become his wife. Now my life is Cushla's life, and Cushla's life is my life. (PLAYS RIFF) I think having Down's syndrome is pretty good for me, cos I've got` clever enough, got two jobs, just with Down's ` what I've got. Yeah. All the songs we play are all our originals. We've got so many good songs. Oh, man, the songs are an instant hit, man. They're, like, so unique and so fantastic. I love all our songs, almost. UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC PLAYS SONG WINDS UP CHEERING 'Yeah, we do have our moments.' Awesome, Gabe. The important thing is we are still together and we still haven't broken up. As long as I'm around, The Mutes From Mars will still be living. LAID-BACK MUSIC TOOT! TOOT! TOOT! TOOT! Come on, guys! TOOTING, WHOOPING (HOLDS NOTE) # Those beautiful people, # amazing and bright. # The day is coming. # We're young and free. # We will sail... # across the sea. # Even though the wind is blowing, # it doesn't stop us to get where we are going. Why did the chickens cross the road? To get to the other side. Why did the computer cross the road? Cos it was programmed by the chicken. Cos it was programmed by the chicken. BOTH LAUGH # We are all so # wise at living. Here we are ` hot rod heaven. My biggest dream has come true. ENGINE REVVING Here we go. GABE: Welcome to the house of rock. Oh my gosh ` I can imagine a wild party here all night. Who wants a cup of tea? Who wants a cup of tea? BOTH: Yes, please. Hi, I'm Stuart. I'm a quasi-roadie for the band, the tour manager. I make sure the people get to the gigs and get home safely. The Supported Life is a residential provider. However, in the 17 years it has been going, we've always looked at creating creative outlets and opportunities in the arts and drama and now music for the people that we work with, and, you know, people talk about providing an ordinary life for people. I don't really think that's what it's about. It's providing extraordinary things and opportunities for people to really develop their talents and abilities. Stuart loves the band, and we love having Stuart, and I think when we play it does a lot for Stuart and gets Stuart going. Stuart had the idea of starting a band in the back of his mind, and he knew that Nathan could play and he knew that Jared could play and Gabe could play. So, yeah. What we` We kind of came together at the same time and were, like, 'Let's start a band.' For dinner tonight, we're going to have some steak, some sausages. Music is a great thing for people with disabilities to be involved in. If they're having a hard day, we get into rehearsal and rock out, and it's a chance for them to just be themselves without any sort of` without any baggage. But saying that, that applies to everybody. He's an awesome guy, man. We're lucky to have Sam for our band member. I think Sam is actually the key of the band, really, cos, like, when you, like, put a key into the door, it opens. And with Sam, he plays his guitar, and it actually starts our music up, and we start playing the music And... he just really completes me, and he's doing one of the greatest of the greatest, and we love Sam. Substance of earth, essence of life, praise the people who ask you now for blessings on this meal. Blessings on the meal. We all come from a supported life. And we're all different. And we're really unique, but we all get on together. Here's to the day, a new tomorrow. Here's to everybody. Here's to everybody. To us ` The Mutes From Mars. Go, The Mutes. Cheers to The Mutes. Cheers to The Mutes. ALL CHEER REFLECTIVE MUSIC HOT ROD ENGINES CHUG EXCITED HUBBUB How do you spell 'from'? That's it. Cars rule, yeah! Welcome to Sony Beach Hop 14, and it's a real pleasure. We're so excited to see you guys here. You gonna rock for us? You gonna rock for us? Yeah! You gonna rock for us? Yeah! Rock and roll! ALL CHEER ALL CHEER Come and have a closer look. She's beautiful. '59 Cadillac, mate. This is awesome. ENGINE REVS ALL WHOOP ENGINES REVVING Oh, it's beautiful. Oh my God. It was heaven. And I just want to... mwah! Yay, Whangamata! UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC PLAYS It's really not hard to rock out. We're really good at dancing. # You could pick flowers, find the pretty soul... These other bands are pretty good, but so are we. # I could never say goodbye. One of my things that I really love to do ` I like to go around places like this and search for some real good treasure, and you never know what you may find. This is a nice old Ford hubcap. I think it's a Galaxy 500. I've got quite a lot of hubcaps. I've got a few Holden hubcaps, a Morris Minor hubcap. I'd like to have a whole fence full of hubcaps. This is just a book. I put my name down here ` Gabriel Ashby, the drummer of The Mutes. And I put 'The Mutes From Mars' on the book so people know who we are and I can give out my autographs. For my fans out in Whangamata, it doesn't look like they want it ` the autograph ` cos this part of Whangamata probably doesn't know the band as well. We've all got different things with us, but I've just been too embarrassed to ask the band, um, what they've got, but that's why I don't really know. I'm, yeah` I'm more in for the good times and touring and stuff with the band. I don't think having disabilities holds them back. It shows the world that anybody can do anything. My name is Lisa. I'm 29 years old, and I play lead guitar. My name is Jared, and I'm, um` I'm 37. And I'm in the band Mutes From Mars, and I'm a drummer in the band. Then they asked me, 'Do you like nice music, especially rock and roll?' Hi, my name is Gabriel Friedlander. I am the backup vocalist and sometimes lead vocal. I'm Miranda Mills, and, uh... I am 54 years old. I just turned 54 last week. And, uh, I'm one of the songwriters, keyboardists and singers in the band` lead singers in the band, yep. We've always looked at many outlets for people's innate creativity that is there and their wish to really shine, and they can do that and be as good as if not better than anybody else in particular streams of creativity. Oh nice. Fast Mustang. Ooh, nice! When the rest of the band was, um` Nice! When the rest of the band was in the bach playing cards and talking to each other, I wanted to join them, but I couldn't miss out on any of the action. I've basically just sat here all weekend and watched cars go by, and it was awesome. We're so famous. We've been around everywhere, and... Yeah. Honestly, I've got real greatest friends in this band. especially my friend I've known for so long, and now he's my flatmate, and he's the bass guitar player, Nathan. I used to get really nervous. And I used to not want to be on stage, and I used to get really worried. But since I've had` God, how many years? 12 or 15 maybe... No. 10 or eight. Who knows how many years? I've lost count. Um, the years gone by, I'm surprisingly not that nervous on stage now. Now I can't wait to get up on stage and give the crowd what they want. We've got some nice shirts here for you guys to wear on stage today. Here you go, Miranda. Thank you. Wow. Thank you. Wow. Check this out, man. All the guys in the band are looking good, and everyone's looking like the guys from AC/DC. ALL MURMUR EXCITEDLY Whoo! The 69, baby! # To be dancing to that boogie-woogie sound. Come on. All right, guys. Let's have an awesome gig, OK? We'll go and blow them away. And, everybody, just play your best, and we'll have a fantastic time, OK? OK, Mutes From Mars. OK, Mutes From Mars. ALL: The Mutes From Mars. One, two, three... Mutes From Mars! UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS Good evening, everybody. Good afternoon, sorry, everyone. Welcome to the Beach Hop and this amazing, beautiful Whangamata day. It's great here. We're The Mutes From Mars. We'll play a few of our original songs now. This one's called Under The Sea, which Miranda wrote. I wrote this about two years ago, and it's about mermaid who meets a handsome land-dweller, and she would like him to come under the sea with her. PONDEROUS ROCK MUSIC PLAYS I describe us as the most unique band in all of NZ. One day I would like to see us on the Top 40 NZ charts. And I would like to see us, in time, going to places like Vector Arena and the big places. Show the world what we can do. # I'm waiting for you to start changing your mi-ind,... # Changing your mind. # ...to live in my world, here with me. # And you will fi-i-ind... # ...under the sea, # I'm happy to be. I couldn't honestly imagine my life without The Mutes. I'm in The Mutes now. If I wasn't in the The Mutes, oh, I wouldn't know what to do. If I wasn't in the band, I would just shut down completely. and I would just have no point in... I would rather living life. I would just... probably just have my head fall off. # I'm under the water. I would like to see the band get as big as Lionel Richie, John Farnham, Rolling Stones and all the icons. Well, if not that big, big enough anyway. I think we're doing so well. We're doing so great, and I just love being in the band, and it's` the band is my life. # Under the sea... I felt I'm famous. When I'm out on stage, it feels really good. # Under the sea... Yeah, yeah. # I'm happy to be. # Under the sea, yeah, I'm happy to be. Whoo! We're pretty unique, eh? You can't get any uniquer than us. It's quite good being together. It's good being together in the band, yeah. That in the band, we have power. We are powerful. We all just change. The minute we get on stage, we just` we play our music like any other band. We may have disabilities and things like that, but we are just like any other music band, just wanting to make music out there. Without music, we wouldn't be who we are today. I mean, the world needs music. I mean, a lot, yeah. A lot of people need music, you know? And it keeps us happy, you know? I wanted to go on to music therapy, actually, because I feel that music therapy helped me when I was in my` (CHUCKLES) I was in a car accident a long time ago. I was in a coma, and my mother played some piano that I used to play, and when I was in coma, I started unconsciously tapping to the beat. And I feel that that's gotta mean something, and that's why I'm going to pursue music therapy. I love achieving, trying to get the fame. That's what I always wanted. I've always wanted to have a bit of fame. I hope we go further, maybe release some more albums,... um, get famous, basically. And, yeah, show people that you don't have to be perfect to make it to the top. RHYTHMIC ROCK MUSIC PLAYS I didn't think I'd play that good and be that good, but I was a lot better than I thought I would be. I actually enjoyed it. And I didn't want it to end. I wanted to keep going all night long. # There's something nice in her arm ` made her feel great, made her feel calm. Every time we play, the crowd seems to get up and dance and really enjoy us playing. I think the audience sees us as really good performers. We can get up there and give a good show and give the crowd a good time. # Social li-i-ife, they've just gone down the road. # Her new Lamborghini had just been towed. People hear us, and if they give a good chance, I reckon we'd appeal to a lot of people. # No, she didn't care. I just hope NZ's ready for us. # So lonesome. # We are all kind of awesome. I think I'm doing pretty good as a group, going performing in a band, and all the girls love me. It's like` I-I-It's like a problem with me. I'm just so neat and so tidy, and girls like me. I'm a really` a ladies man. Yeah. # We gotta help each other # every day! Yeow! When we end, there'll be another concert waiting for us around the corner, or at least I hope there will be. Being in The Mutes has definitely helped me live life more and enjoy life more, and I just don't want to live life any other way. I wanna keep living this life till I can't live it any more. MUSIC WINDS UP Give it up for The Mutes! Thank you so much. You've been a great audience. Thank you. It's our biggest gig ever we have done, so thank you. Thank you for being part of it. Can I just say something while I'm at it? I've loved cars ever since I was 6 years old, and I never thought that I'd ever get a chance to see something as awesome as this. CHEERING, APPLAUSE Thank you again. Yeah, we did good, I reckon. Yeah, we did good, I reckon. That was really awesome. That was such a great gig. ALL AGREE This concert that we just did today was probably the most greatest rock concert of my life. I'm so, like, in rock-and-roll heaven. Oh man, I just bloody love it! I'm still feeling the vibes from the crowd, eh. It's just... Whoa. It's so cool. And I think` I thought we played quite well on stage as well. Yeah, we did. This one was pretty good, cos we sort of played it out there, you know? We played it in full mainstream. The people sort of took us as they saw us, and they're mainstream and ordinary people, local people walking around hearing us. They just took us as they found us. < Came and listened to the music. < Came and listened to the music. Yeah, just came to listen to the music. That's what we're all about. Music. THE MUTES' 'UNDER THE SEA' # Can it be, # under the sea, yeah, yeah, # I'm happy to be? # # Under the sea, yeah, # I'm happy to be. # Under the sea, yeah, # I'm happy to be. # Under the sea, yeah, # I'm happy to be. # Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2014